Given your coverage of The College of the Florida Keys, I write to make you aware of correspondence I have sent regarding the reconstituted Board of Trustees’ move to terminate President Jonathan “Dr. G” Gueverra, and to offer some context on where the College has come from, in case it is useful to your reporting. I write in my individual capacity, as a former Chair of the District Board of Trustees, a former Chair of the College Foundation and its current Foundation Vice Chair; for more than 15 years my principal service to the College has been to help it raise money.
The correspondence. I have written to Governor DeSantis, twice, once on the fairness and record of the matter and once on its consequences for the College’s fundraising; to Representative Jim Mooney; to Senator Ana Maria Rodriguez; and to each of the seven members of the Board of Trustees individually, urging that the action be reconsidered. I have also written to keep President Gueverra, CFK Foundation Executive Director Lana Gaspari, and Monroe County Commissioner Holly Raschein informed. I am glad to provide copies of any of these letters.
Where the College has come from. When I first came to the College more than 15 years ago, its finances were in such disarray that the College was compelled to turn to the Foundation, itself of limited means, simply to remain in compliance with the State of Florida and with its regional accreditor. The College was on probation with that accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools; the nursing program had lost its accreditation; the College could not enroll international students; and the emergency medical services program was at risk, the College having failed to meet the applicable credentialing requirements. The residence halls ran below capacity and at a loss, tenured faculty taught near-empty sections in programs then in decline, and a standalone Upper Keys campus was not conceivable. The institution operated from scarcity.
Where it is now. Under President Gueverra’s leadership since 2012, the College became a four-year, baccalaureate-degree-granting institution and holds sole accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission. It opened the $20 million Upper Keys Center in Key Largo, funded by a $16 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce and by private gifts, without state appropriations. It was designated by the U.S. Maritime Administration as a Center of Excellence in 2021 and again in 2024, the only college in Florida to hold that federal designation. It was named the National Retail Federation Foundation’s 2025 RISE Up Partner of the Year. It has reached and sustained the enrollment necessary to its survival, and it is now building student and workforce housing on the Key West campus, a campaign that has already raised five million dollars.
Why the stated rationale does not hold. The Board’s principal concern is said to be the College’s funding. But raising money for the College, and advocating for it in Tallahassee, is a duty the law assigns to the Board itself; the appropriations the Board has faulted the president for failing to secure were decided at the state level, including a $3.5 million chiller-plant appropriation vetoed from the state budget; and the College’s signature building was delivered almost entirely without state dollars. In short, a president is being faulted for the very function the Board is charged with, at the moment he is leading a housing campaign that has already raised millions. As the person whose duty it has been to raise this College’s money, I can tell you that much of its private support is tied to the confidence donors place in Dr. Gueverra, and will not easily survive his removal.
Respectfully,
Robert Stoky
Former Chair, District Board of Trustees, The College of the Florida Keys
Former Chair and current Vice Chair, CFK Foundation Board
